


Gingerbread

by truethingsproved



Series: Hunter [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison-centric, F/M, allison/scott friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how vulnerable he’s seen her, no matter how brokenhearted she’s been around him, and no matter how he might sometimes act, he knows that she’s no damsel in distress, and that she never has been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gingerbread

Scott is making gingerbread men and Allison’s not complaining.

Scott is even making Allison help him make gingerbread men, and Allison’s actually having a good time.

Either he’s magical—which is her vote—or Christmas is starting to seem less horrible to her. He’s successfully managed to not bring up her mother, her aunt, her father, or that he found her crying in Coach’s office today at school. Instead, he’s all questions about what she’s reading (still The Great Gatsby for English, but she’s started reading Gone with the Wind so she can understand all the references and Lydia insist on making), the movie she saw last week (she’s not even a big fan of James Bond, but Skyfall was just fun), her favorite bands (still the same as they were last spring, so the mix CDs they’re exchanging shouldn’t be hard to make). He doesn’t feel like her ex, he feels like a friend, a friend she loved fiercely and knew intimately and missed terribly. One look from those big brown eyes and her complaints about festivities die in her throat and really, she’s just glad to be spending time with someone who doesn’t look at her like they think she’s about to collapse.

This has always been one of her favorite parts about Scott McCall. No matter how vulnerable he’s seen her, no matter how brokenhearted she’s been around him, and no matter how he might sometimes act, he knows that she’s no damsel in distress, and that she never has been. She’s glad that they are where they are now; she’d have been miserable if breaking up with him meant losing him entirely. The summer had been filled with awkward interactions and finally, come her birthday in November, they’d had a long discussion about whether or not they wanted to get back together, and they’d ended up playing Taylor Swift and laying on her floor laughing.

He’s humming some Christmas carol off-key and the next thing Allison knows she’s harmonizing while making little frosting faces on the gingerbread men that have cooled off enough and somewhere in the middle it turns into a completely different song and they laugh and laugh and laugh. She smears some frosting on his cheek and he responds by flicking a gumdrop at her face, which ends up bouncing off her left eyebrow, and this just makes them laugh more.

There’s no talk of this being the first Christmas without her mother, but he does mention his own (Mrs. McCall, who she’s taken to calling Mamma McCall like Stiles and Isaac do, says hello), and how the first Christmas without his dad was really difficult but that it gets easier. It never makes him miss his dad less, but it makes him love his mom more. He talks about how when his grandparents died, he dreaded Christmas, until Christmas actually rolled around, and when that happened, it hurt more than he’d thought it ever could, but it made him appreciate what he had left more.

From anyone else this would sound absolutely ridiculous, but it’s Scott, and everything he says just sounds sincere. If there’s anyone who unselfishly cares for Allison, it’s him.

When they finish their gingerbread men, he pauses and turns to her. “Can I ask you something?”

She feels her mouth twisting into her familiar, crooked smile, the kind of smile only a few people can get from her these days. “Go ahead.”

Scott mirrors her smile, but he somehow makes it look kind. “Do you really not feel anything?”

The silence in the kitchen is almost painful, but Scott waits patiently for Allison to arrange her thoughts coherently. “I don’t want to feel anything,” she confesses. “I’m afraid that if I start feeling, then it’ll just get overwhelming. But I miss feeling the good stuff, you know? Stuff like this, or reading with Lydia. I should feel awful for that, shouldn’t I?” she asks after a moment’s consideration.

“I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. I just think that when you start letting yourself deal with this, it’s going to be worse the longer you pretend you’re okay.” Scott’s always careful about not touching her too much, but he presses his arm against hers, turning to face the cookies. “I think maybe you could start being not-okay in little doses until you’re okay again. It might help.”

The warmth of the contact and the genuine sweetness of his smile and concern leave Allison almost raw, and she nods wordlessly, wrinkling her nose as she tries to figure out how one manages to be not-okay in little doses, and how any of this even works, or if there’s a right way to do this, and the next thing she knows her shoulders are shaking and her teeth are clenched as if she’s in pain and there are fat tears hitting the countertop beneath her hands.

It’s not the kind of crying she did the night she came home to find her father putting up the tree. That kind of crying felt like crying in reaction to pain; this feels like crying in reaction to exhaustion, and it’s tiring, Allison realizes, pretending that she’s alright when she’s really not. Scott slips his hand over hers and squeezes, and she leans her head on his shoulder, still shaking. It’s ugly crying, and she sniffles and takes in deep, shuddering breaths, the kind that are almost sobs in their own right. Scott doesn’t let go of her hand.

He asks her twice to repeat what she says, though, and when she’s controlled her hiccupping and crying enough he can hear her clearly enough: “I’m angry.”

“I know,” he says, squeezing her hand.

“I feel horrible that I’m so angry.”

“You’re not horrible,” he promises, and suddenly she’s turned around and thrown her arms around his neck, and he’s got his arms securely around her middle and she’s weeping into his shoulder while he rubs gently up and down her spine. “It’s okay that you’re angry.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, her voice muffled, and he shakes his head and kisses her hair. She’s not sure if she’s talking about his now-damp shirt stained with her eyeliner and mascara, or the crying in general, or the breakup, or her family, or every mistake she’s ever made in regards to the too-forgiving boy holding her without making her feel like a child.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he says, and he knows, he hears every apology she doesn’t speak. He forgives her anyway. He always does. He always will. His grasp around her tightens the harder she cries and they must be standing there for almost twenty minutes but he doesn’t let her go.

Not until she’s ready.


End file.
